1. Field
The present disclosure relates to techniques for communicating optical signals. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to an integrated circuit that includes an optical source.
2. Related Art
Silicon photonics is a promising technology that can provide large communication bandwidth, low latency and low power consumption for inter-chip and intra-chip connections. In the last few years, significant progress has been made in developing low-cost components for use in inter-chip and intra-chip silicon-photonic connections, including: high-bandwidth efficient silicon modulators, low-loss optical waveguides, wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) components, and high-speed CMOS optical-waveguide photodetectors. However, producing a suitable low-cost WDM optical source remains a challenge and poses an obstacle to implementing WDM silicon-photonic links. For example, conventional WDM laser sources: have very low wall-plug efficiency (typically, 1-5%), require cooling, and are bulky and expensive.
Hence, what is needed is an integrated optical source without the above-described problems.